Obi Refused to Caution Datti On Treasonable Comments – Lai Mohammed

Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information says Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) refusal to caution his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed over his controversial comments means he agrees with his statement.

Recall that Datti had in an interview questioned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the pronouncement of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the presidential election in February.

Datti claimed that swearing Tinubu in as Nigeria President will be unconstitutional as the president-elect has not met requirements of the law.

The statement did not sit well with Mohammed as he said during an interaction with State House correspondents that Datti is calling for insurrection through his statement.

“I said Mr. Peter Obi has every right to seek redress in court like the Labour Party but nobody has the right to call for insurrection or to threaten to say that if the president-elect is sworn-in, that would be the end of democracy,” the minister said.

The minister insinuated that Obi’s running mate statement on live television has not been corrected or revoked by the Obi with claim whatever one’s running mate says, he is saying it on behalf of the party and on behalf of the candidate.

According to the minister, he believes it is treason for anybody to say that if a duly elected president in Nigeria is sworn in, it is an end of democracy or it is related to swearing in the military.

He claimed there was no controversy in his statement.

The Minister added that the 2023 election was the freest and most transparent election in Nigeria,  despite the efforts of opposition parties to discredit the election, adding that President Muhammadu Buhari did not give preference to the ruling party during the elections.

Mohammed claimed he told his audience on his trip to the US that the president stopped rigging elections with security agencies.

“I went to the US to balance the skewed report about the just concluded elections; and everywhere I went, I said very unambiguously that the last general elections in Nigeria are the most transparent,” he said.

He concluded by saying the reason for concluding that the election was the best was one was due to the introduction of technology especially, the BVAS which made it difficult for anybody to boy-cott by the procedures by over-voting, stuffing of ballot boxes and so on because once it takes your biometrics, you cannot vote twice.

He added that the President said and provided a level playing ground which did not confer any advantage on his ruling party. According to him, the president lost his home state Katsina.

“It has never happened before in the history of Nigeria for a sitting president to lose his own state,” he said.